Nathan Thrall

Nathan Thrall is an American author, essayist, and journalist based in Jerusalem. Thrall is the author of The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2017; Picador, 2018) and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, and The New York Review of Books.
Thrall is the former Director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group, where he covered Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel's relations with its neighbors from 2010 to 2020.
Background and education
Thrall received a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies and an M.A. in politics from Columbia University. A former member of the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books, he was hired at the International Crisis Group by Robert Malley. At the start of his tenure at the International Crisis Group, Thrall lived in Gaza.
Works
The Only Language They Understand
Thrall's essay collection The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2017; Picador, 2018) received positive reviews in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Time, and The New York Review of Books. The Jewish Book Council's Bob Goldfarb wrote that his book, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine, "brings unparalleled clarity to the dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian relations, and is an essential guide to the history, personalities, and ideas behind the conflict." Mosaic selected the book as one of the best of the year, writing, "A knowledgeable and bold retelling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict that forces readers to take a serious and fresh look at their assumptions. Throughout its counterintuitive retelling of this history, it offers an unusually provocative and sometimes startling contribution to the genre."
The Separate Regimes Delusion
In January 2021, the London Review of Books published Thrall's article, "The Separate Regimes Delusion," which argued, "The premise that Israel is a democracy, maintained by Peace Now, Meretz, the editorial board of Haaretz and other critics of occupation, rests on the belief that one can separate the pre-1967 state from the rest of the territory under its control. A conceptual wall must be maintained between two regimes: (good) democratic Israel and its (bad) provisional occupation." Thrall's article was praised in Haaretz by Gideon Levy, who wrote, "the American writer Nathan Thrall, who lives in Jerusalem, published an eye-opening and mind-expanding piece in The London Review of Books .... Thrall doesn't hesitate to criticize the supposedly liberal-Zionist and leftist organizations, from Meretz and Peace Now to Yesh Din and Haaretz. All of them believe that Israel is a democracy and oppose annexation because it could undermine their false belief that the occupation is happening somewhere else, outside of Israel, and is only temporary."
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
In March 2021, The New York Review of Books published Thrall's piece, "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: One man's quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule," together with an animated trailer. The article was covered in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, Jewish Currents, European publications, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, a podcast episode hosted by New York Times columnist Peter Beinart, and a two-part, forty-minute segment on Democracy Now! Longreads called it "an astonishing feat of reporting" and named it a Best Feature of 2021.
Bibliography
Books
Hardcover ; Electronic (electronic book). Paperback . Audio book: Tantor Audio, 2017. ASIN: B071VGJDQK.
Book chapters
"Can Hamas be part of the solution?," in Jamie Stern-Weiner ed., Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel–Palestine's Toughest Questions. New York, New York: OR Books, 2018.
References
External links
Nathan Thrall | Official Website
Nathan Thrall | Authors | Macmillan Publishers
International Crisis Group
American male journalists
American newspaper reporters and correspondents
American investigative journalists
American foreign policy writers
American male non-fiction writers
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)